What is the original french version of this movie quotation?

March 29, 2009 6:21 PM

What is the actual French corresponding to the English translation of this line from the Godard film Le Mepris (Contempt)?: "It's a drag to be so cute and so sad."

The line is spoken by Paul to Francesca early in the movie (the scene at the director's house). I've found plenty of sources online for the English of the scene, but short of renting the movie and trying to transcribe the French with my very poor ear, I can't seem to find the text of what he is actually saying.

My French isn't good enough to find the French script anywhere on the internet, and I really only need to know that one line, but I'd love to see the multilingual script if anyone can find it.

posted by telegraph to media & arts (6 comments total)

Right, just to clarify, not looking for a translation here. I can think of a variety of ways to say it in French, but I'd like the actual line from the film.
posted by telegraph at 7:01 PM on March 29

It's a shame you can't find a clip of this dialogue which would remove all doubt about the line. I tried googling to find the "scénario complet" without much luck.

Possible translations might be: "c'est embêtant d'être si jolie et si triste" OR "...d'être si mignonne et si triste" OR "si belle et si désolée".
posted by fantasticninety at 7:04 PM on March 29

I listened to the movie and this is what I hear:

"Je trouve ca bête que vous êtes si mignonne et si triste."
posted by jchgf at 7:54 PM on March 29

Audio from the movie.
posted by jchgf at 8:03 PM on March 29 [1 favorite has favorites]

I agree with jchgf's transcription (many thanks for the audio file!), though the "trouve ca" and the "vous êtes" are spoken so quickly it's hard to be sure. So the subtitle isn't really accurate; the French means "I think it's stupid that you're so cute and so sad."

And for fuck's sake, there's no point guessing about how one might say that in French, the question is about what the actual line is.
posted by languagehat at 9:05 AM on March 30

"Je trouve ca bête que vous êtes si mignonne et si triste."

This looks grammatically incorrect to me. I couldn't download the audio file, but I think "je trouve ça bête que..." should take the subjunctive. So I would expect to hear "Je trouve ça bête que vous soyez si mignonne et si triste."
posted by creeky at 4:43 AM on May 4